Good. The Sox don't need the issues with their rotation. (or with anybody else for that matter on the roster...)

Lip

Agreed Lip. I cringe whenever an important Sox player participates in the WBC. I was not pleased to read that Jesse Crain will be pitching for team Canada. It is especially troubling when you consider that Crain struggled with health issues last season. I hope there aren't many more Sox players in it:

__________________
The very existence of flamethrowers proves that some time, somewhere, someone said to themselves, "You know, I want to set those people over there on fire, but I'm just not close enough to get the job done." -George Carlin

"Genius is not replicable. Inspiration, though, is contagious, and multiform — and even just to see, close up, power and aggression made vulnerable to beauty is to feel inspired and (in a fleeting, mortal way) reconciled."
--David Foster Wallace, () "Roger Federer as Religious Experience"

Because throwing 70 pitches in a WBC game is different than throwing 70 in a ST game.

I would say it is. The games have a lot more intensity than a lazy spring training game where guys sometimes only throw 1 or 2 types of pitches their whole outing. They might be working on command or location where as in these WBC games pitchers are actually trying to get outs as they would in a regular game.

__________________It breaks your heart. It is designed to break your heart. The game begins in the spring, when everything else begins again, and it blossoms in the summer, filling the afternoons and evenings, and then as soon as the chill rains come, it stops and leaves you to face the fall alone. - A. Bartlett Giamatti

1) I like the WBC and wish more big leaguers would take it seriously, though considering Sale's case I'm fine that he's not participating.
2) Is there quantitative data to support this?

I too like the WBC. I like the idea of an international baseball competition. I haven't made up my mind yet whether I'll see any games in San Francisco, though.

At the same time, I have no problem with White Sox players not participating, not becuse I believe the competition will render them less effective, but becuase there is always a chance that something could go wrong. There's always that chance, whether it's baseball or tarp sliding or whatever. Pete Ward became a lesser player after riding in a car.

Really, I don't know that participating in the WBC puts players, especially pitchers at a greater risk of performing well in the season than playing deep into the previous postseason.

I too like the WBC. I like the idea of an international baseball competition. I haven't made up my mind yet whether I'll see any games in San Francisco, though.

At the same time, I have no problem with White Sox players not participating, not becuse I believe the competition will render them less effective, but becuase there is always a chance that something could go wrong. There's always that chance, whether it's baseball or tarp sliding or whatever. Pete Ward became a lesser player after riding in a car.

Really, I don't know that participating in the WBC puts players, especially pitchers at a greater risk of performing well in the season than playing deep into the previous postseason.

Ask Mike Sirotka about that. Dude did not get proper rest following 2000 season pitched winter ball and his arm (torn labrum) just about fell off, no more MLB career. Bet he like to have those 70 pitches back!